Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde movement in the visual arts that revolutionized European painting and sculpture. Painters, sculptors, and architects working in this style sought to integrate into a single composition both abstract and representational aspects of subject matter.
Designated at first as “Cubists” by the press, they came to be known simply as “cubists.” Cubism spread rapidly throughout Paris, France, and then the rest of Europe; soon it was developed by artists across the globe. The profound effect of their work can be seen today in virtually every area of modern art: photography, film, collage, assemblage, performance art, and so on.
This website is intended to provide source material for college-aged students who are studying cubism or who are interested in learning more about this essential chapter in the history of art. It will also be useful to anyone with an interest in cubism or modern art in general.
After reading this blog post, your knowledge of cubism will be stronger and more well-rounded. At the end of your reading, you will have a better understanding of the history of cubism.
CUBISM: A BRIEF HISTORY
Cubism was a revolutionary art movement that began in the early 1900s. The movement is credited to two artists, Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Cubism developed in the period between 1907 and 1914. The word “cubism” refers to the cube-like space created by a subject or object that is observed. This is why cubist paintings are full of cubes, or faceting.
Tonal color was another important aspect of cubism. Both Picasso and Braque were intrigued by the idea of depicting objects from multiple perspectives at once, which could easily be achieved with tonal color.
The notion of three-dimensionality in painting was also integral to cubism. This allowed for depth and perspective that previously had not been seen in painting before Cubists like Picasso and Braque came along.
Picasso’s “Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler” is an example of his work during this time period (see picture). Notice how he used tonal color to
Cubism is an avant-garde style of painting developed and practiced in the early 20th century by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, among others. It is a form of geometric abstraction, but also a form of representation, as it represents objects from life in all their three-dimensional aspects. The cubists sought to portray the world in a more dynamic way than had ever been done before, both to free it from the conventions of traditional academic art, and to express the dynamism they perceived in life.
Toward that end, the cubists experimented with different ways of representing three-dimensional reality on a two dimensional surface. They developed the field of synthetic cubism, based on the idea that all forms in nature could be reduced to basic cubes. They also introduced collage into their works, and experimented with different kinds of texture and color application.
The term “cubism” was coined by the French art critic Louis Vauxcelles in reference to Picasso’s painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907). Cubism spread quickly throughout Paris and Europe. It influenced not only visual arts but music and literature as well. Though largely outmoded today, cubism played an important role in changing how visual
Cubism had a major impact on modern art and was one of the most significant art movements of the 20th century. In Spain, it is referred to as El Cubismo, El Cubismo Spanish or simply cubismo.
The origin of cubism can be traced back to Pablo Picasso’s painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon in 1907. This piece not only helped to define the movement, but also changed the course of art history with its radical depiction of space, form and color.
In 1912, Picasso met Georges Braque and they began working collaboratively and experimented with this new style of painting. They made important contributions and became two of the founding fathers of the movement known as cubism.
Pictures by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) and Georges Braque (1882-1963) are considered among the greatest art works in history.
Cubism is a form of art that developed in Europe during the early 20th century. The word Cubism comes from the word Cube, which is a three-dimensional figure. The idea behind cubism is that an object can be viewed from different directions at the same time. Picasso, Braque and Gris are three artists commonly associated with the movement.
Taken from: http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/cubism.html
Cubism was a style of art developed between 1907 and 1914 by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque that significantly revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. Cubism has been considered to be the most influential art movement of the 20th century because it brought European painting and sculpture into the modern era, and it expanded the potential of art by challenging traditional concepts of space, time, subject matter and technique.
Taken from: http://www.theartstory.org/movement-cubism.htm
Cubism was founded on two basic principles: multiple view points—in other words, abstraction; and simultaneity—in other words, simultaneity of time or action within one picture plane (just as we have simultaneity in
Cubism was an avant-garde art movement founded by Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and others in 1907. Cubism was first thought to be the beginning of a new art movement. However, it later became clear that it was an offshoot of Expressionism and Futurism.
Towards the end of the 19th century, artists started exploring dimensions beyond that of land and sky. Artists began to explore the third dimension, or depth as its commonly referred to in our vocabulary today. This idea is known as linear perspective. Linear perspective is the concept that one object will diminish in size the further it gets from the viewer. Furthermore, this concept suggests that if an artist were to view a scene from above he would see no distortion of objects within that scene; hence the term linear.
The idea that one object would diminish in size based on its distance from the viewer led artists to think about how we perceive depth and how we are able to judge how far away something is from us. This led artists such as Paul Cézanne to experiment with angles and points of view in order to convey depth in his paintings using flat surfaces just like a photograph would do.
Perceiving depth was not enough for some artists at this time though
The art form called Cubism developed in early 20th century Paris. This highly innovative style of art was developed by a group of avant-garde artists and theoreticians who wanted to break free from what they felt were the outdated traditions of painting.
Toward the end of the 19th century, French artists began to question the status quo. They noticed that the painters and sculptors of the past had relied on traditional techniques such as perspective, chiaroscuro, extreme foreshortening, modeling, and even linear perspective. In doing so, they felt that these artists had limited themselves in their representations and interpretations of reality.
This dissatisfaction with tradition led many artists to become more interested in philosophy, which led to many different ideas about how to portray space and time on canvas.
The most important proponent of these new philosophies was an artist named Georges Seurat. He was best known for his paintings of Parisian life in which he used little dots of color in order to represent objects on canvas. His work received critical acclaim at first but later fell out of favor with critics as his work became more abstract. Eventually it became known as Pointillism.
Other artists like Paul Gauguin and Paul Cézanne also began experimenting with abstraction. They
